Abortion opponents are urging lawmakers to strip funding from 32 Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio and redirect the tax dollars for family-planning services to community-health clinics and other public facilities. Meanwhile, those pushing the Senate to ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected are now targeting one of the chamber's most-outspoken GOP abortion opponents, who they say is holding up the bill.

Abortion opponents are urging lawmakers to strip funding from 32 Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio and redirect the tax dollars for family-planning services to community-health clinics and other public facilities.

Meanwhile, those pushing the Senate to ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected are now targeting one of the chamber’s most-outspoken GOP abortion opponents, who they say is holding up the bill.

The Planned Parenthood legislation is part of a national push to defund the organization because its clinics provide abortions. Yesterday, supporters and opponents packed a House hearing room and two adjacent rooms opened to handle the overflow to hear testimony supporting House Bill 298. An identical bill is before the Senate.

“The goal of this legislation, as far as Ohio Right to Life is concerned, is to continue to provide family planning and women’s health services to low-income women who are in need of such services across the state, without sending them to Planned Parenthood,” Stephanie Ranade Krider, director of legislative affairs for the anti-abortion group, told lawmakers.

The hearing comes just weeks after the Susan G. Komen Foundation reversed its decision to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood in response to an intense backlash against the private breast-cancer charity.

Still, those on both sides of Ohio’s debate say the bill has a good shot of passing the Republican-led General Assembly.

Health Committee Chairman Lynn Wachtmann, R-Napoleon, said the legislation is more about increasing health-care services for women than it is about Planned Parenthood.

“The money would still be available, just in a different setting,” he said afterward.

The bill re-prioritizes how federal funding for family-planning services is distributed by the state. Money must first be made available to public clinics, then private entities that provide comprehensive primary- and preventative-care services in addition to family-planning services, and finally to groups like Planned Parenthood. Such a pecking order essentially cuts off aid to Planned Parenthood.

The 32 clinics in Ohio received about $1.7 million in public funding last year and served nearly 100,000 patients, officials said.

Stressing that the organization already cannot use any public money it receives to fund abortions, Planned Parenthood supporters said that more than 90 percent of the services provided by clinics include birth control, screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. The loss of funds likely won’t shut them down but could lead to higher fees for patients and longer waits for services.

“These services aren’t available elsewhere in many communities,” said Gary Dougherty, legislative director of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Ohio.

Rep. Nickie J. Antonio, D-Lakewood, said Planned Parenthood clinics have long provided easy access to poor women and those without health coverage, and also to many young women who are just taking responsibility for their health-care needs.

“My concern is that once again ideology is becoming a barrier to access to reproductive-health services,” she said.

Starting today, graphic billboard trucks will start circling the Dayton area in an effort to convince Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, to vote for the so-called heartbeat bill. Groups sponsoring the billboards, Created Equal and Operation Rescue, called Lehner a “main obstacle” to passing the bill.

The bill passed the House but has stalled in the Senate over legal concerns raised by groups, including Ohio Right to Life, which fears it would not withstand a court challenge and the ensuing legal fight could reinforce the Roe v. Wade ruling giving women the right to an abortion.

When those reservations are raised, “it’s my duty as a dedicated pro-life legislator to not act with haste and to fully understand the concerns of these well-respected organizations,” Lehner said. “It’s regrettable that (other groups) don’t understand the process better.”

A potential compromise could be a requirement that abortion providers make the sound of a fetal heartbeat part of a woman’s informed consent.